how to return home
by Dreams Call Out to Me
Summary: Eleven and Clara go to visit Dave and meet his new girlfriend. For the tumblr DW fix exchange. Set somewhere in between DOTD and TOTD


**Wednesday**

Eventually everything became alive. Her life was a constant mess afterwards, but she knew that the only way to put it all together was to get out. Clara loved the Doctor and she had a mild affection for the TARDIS, but she knew that this was not heaven, and that the only way to regain herself was putting some distance between them. She knew better than anyone that the time for goodbye between the two of them was coming, and not even his time machine could give them all the time in the world.

So, she got out. He continued to visit her every Wednesday, and even tried going to the Maitlands' house other days of the week, but she made a point by going out with friends she had lost touch with, and even a date or two. She had to get back, and not the the Clara he had known, but the one before that, the one that could be selfish and knew when to say no and understood that she couldn't help everyone. After that, she quit her job as a nanny as soon as she got a teaching job, and moved into her own flat. Angie had her mobile and if the Maitlands were in need she would always try to help them, but they were too old, and they had to grow up with the loss of their mother, and there was nothing else she could do for them.

The Doctor came constantly to her flat, and more than once she had found the TARDIS parked in what would have been her parking space, and the Doctor making himself comfortable in her couch. He also constantly complained about her getting home late, and she blamed the tube, to which he surprised her one day by giving her the anti-grav bike. She was grateful.

But even when she had regained her life, and she wasn't the one chasing the Doctor, she had lost small and big details to her life: the Maitlands for all the trouble they were, always gave her something to smile about, and the inconveniences of having a job away from home and living the social life she had deprived herself for more than a year, plus running away with the Doctor usually meant that she barely talked to her father, and when she did their chats were short and she would barely pay attention.

'You should take some sick days, you know,' the Doctor said, sitting beside her on the counter, since she had learnt the bad way that the TARDIS was still not so amicable with her. 'We could voyage in the waterfalls of Ixen and have some rest days.'

'I'm not sick, just working, and you never want to just have some _rest days_.'

'If I took you away no-one would notice,' he argued. 'I thought the concept of _time machine_ was clear enough to you.'

'A time machine you cannot even pilot properly.' She said, stopping momentarily to look at him and think about how domestic their interactions were. The Doctor surely knew how to pilot the TARDIS, but after Trenzalore there was some synchrony between them, and the TARDIS, though it behaved well when she was around him, even to the point of obeying her, constantly hid her things, or locked her in some random room, and more than once had send her to back to earth without sleeping because the Old Girl decided to move Clara's room.

'I can pilot her perfectly!'

'Uh-huh,' Clara hummed distractedly.

'I could take you anywhere in space and time and you spend our Wednesdays grading papers!'

'Well, I have a job, and it's a kind of job I can't just go and run away with you.'

'Chesterton will understand.'

'_Mr._ Chesterton would understand if you hadn't materialised in the middle of the playground.'

The Doctor ended up on the same place he had for the past few Wednesdays: the couch. Each time he had to convince her of going out with him, or sometimes even after some adventure he would sit on the couch, mainly looking at her, but sometimes he would go and reorganise her DVD collection, going by how many aliens went undetected in the cast of each movie.

'Doctor, maybe we should reschedule our meetings,' Clara muttered.

'But Wednesday is _our_ day!'

'But if you came for me on Friday then we would have from Friday to Sunday without any problem.'

'But I have a _time machine_—'

'That doesn't like me.'

He looked at her. His eyes were full of love, and she had seen the variation of that look thousands of times, so she knew that people fell for his eyes, and that most of them got torn apart because of their love for him. Yet he was innocent, those looks and little things were completely innocent on his part, and most of the people misinterpreted his intentions.

'Do you mind if I stay?' He asked.

She sighed. 'I've still got five more papers to grade, but you can make some tea and try not to burn the popcorn this time.'

He played _Fantasia, _which had never been one of her favourites, but she still kept it because her mother loved it, suddenly it seemed completely different. She told herself that it was actually the exhaustion and not the way the Doctor looked at the screen as if it was the first time he's seen it, nor the way he hugged her when he realised that she was shuddering from her other end of the couch.

She fell asleep in the middle of the movie.

The next morning she found him there. Her sleep had not been restful but the fact that he had stayed made her feel a little better.

'A bit keen, aren't you?' She teased.

He looked at her with those sad eyes, he seemed wary, but said nothing about it. 'I just wanted to make sure you were alright.'


End file.
